Data may be protected by storing it within a secure file of a special security application that only permits access to the data according to certain rules. One way of protecting the data is by ensuring that it is only accessed on the same machine as where the data was first stored. This may be accomplished by the security application reading certain stable system values that are unique to a particular system configuration before permitting access to the stored data.
In some cases, a security application may allow an application accessing the secure file to provide its own callback function to access specific stable system values for additional application-specific security.